


Seventh Son

by squirenonny



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Molly just wants to protect Harry, Set at the beginning of Deathly Hallows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 05:24:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9533681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squirenonny/pseuds/squirenonny
Summary: Sometimes Molly wished it didn’t have to be this way. The whole wizarding world had pinned their hopes on a child, a brave and wonderful boy who would stand against the greatest evil in living memory for no other reason because it was right. Sometimes Molly wanted to take them all by the ears, every witch and wizard in Europe, and shake them until they saw the boy behind the stories.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [masked-alias (sherlocked_n_loaded)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sherlocked_n_loaded/gifts).



> Written for masked-alias, who wanted a domestic scene of the Weasleys expressing concern for Harry and a desire to protect him.

Molly Weasley tripped over a pair of shoes, and the laundry she had been shuttling to the living room spilled across the floor.

Regaining her balance, she turned and scowled at the offending shoe, a muddy trainer with knotted, ratty laces. “George,” she huffed, then stooped to gather the laundry. It was wonderful to have the Burrow so full of family again, as it hadn’t been since the boys had begun moving out, but Molly had to admit she had forgotten the small inconveniences that came with a full house.

Once the laundry was gathered and set safely on the sofa back, Molly returned to collect George’s shoes and deposit them in line with the others by the front door. Arthur had had to expand the shoe rack to fit their growing family, but Molly wasn’t going to complain about _that_. There was a spot on the rack for everyone, empty holes proclaiming those who had not yet arrived: Charlie, still tied up with work somewhere in the north; Percy, whose continued silence still hung over Molly like a pall; and Harry, stuck at Privet Drive until the move tonight.

Smiling sadly at the shoe rack, Molly turned and went back to the laundry. There seemed no end to it—nine people’s clothes, sheets for the guest beds, tablecloths for the wedding, towels and orphaned socks and a pillowcase that had had butterbeer splashed all over it (and Merlin knew cleaning charms never quite got the stickiness out.)

Sometimes Molly felt she had been folding laundry nonstop since the end of term, though she knew that was mostly due to the overwhelming number of tasks that still had to be done for the wedding. There wasn’t a body in the house that wasn’t constantly employed in some task or another, however they complained. Today it was charming wedding favors and folding table cards, and they were all busy with it except Molly, who had stepped away for the laundry; Arthur, who was out in his shed working on Hagrid’s horrid motorbike; and Bill and Fleur, who had gone for a stroll before supper.

Molly shook out a cardigan with a snap, folded it, and set it atop Ginny’s stack. As she did so, her eyes slid sideways to the half-knitted jumper sitting beside the armchair. She had hoped to have that finished before Harry arrived (what with all this talk of secret missions and dropping out of Hogwarts, she doubted she would have until Christmas to finish) but the wedding demanded all her time.

A _bang!_ upstairs startled her into dropping a pair of socks. As if the noise wasn’t worrisome enough, it was followed by frantic whispers, pounding footsteps, and a cry of, “Aguamenti!”

Molly huffed a sigh, set the socks on Bill’s stack, and tromped up the stairs to the twins’ room.

“Now _really_ ,” she said, reaching out for the half-closed doors. “I don’t see how the two of you could possibly--”

She stopped, lips turning down into a frown. Fred sat cross-legged on his bed, a pile of charmed bird figurines fluttering around his head, an untouched stack of glossy bags beside him. His wand was shoved beneath his pillow, as if that might prevent Molly from seeing he’d been up to no good.

Molly arched an eyebrow and turned her gaze to George, who knelt on the floor, his face blackened with soot, one eyebrow singed clear off.

“Hello, Mum,” he said brightly, smiling that disarming smile of his. _Who, us?_ that smile seemed to say. _Causing trouble? Never._ “Might want to shut the door, if you please, these party favors are a touch flighty.”

Fred snickered into his hand, though he stifled it when Molly’s attention returned to him.

“I thought you were supposed to be bagging those,” she said sternly. “Not startling them with dung bombs or whatever it is you’re doing.”

“Not dung bombs, Mum,” Fred said. He glanced at George and mouthed, _dung bombs!_

George scrubbed at the soot on his face and clucked his tongue. “You’d _know_ if that was a dung bomb. Foul smelling tripe, that.”

“No, _these--_ ” Fred revealed a pair of lumpy brown balls with a flourish “--are _done bombs_.”

“For those times when you’re just so _done_ with Death Eaters and their lot.”

“A bit of a flash,” said Fred.

“A pre-cast _Supefy_ ,” said George.

“And _crack!_ You’ve got yourself a chance to apparate away.” Fred leaned back against the headboard, obviously pleased with himself.

Molly was not so impressed. “You know very well I don’t want you experimenting with that sort of thing in the house.”

“But _Mum_ \--”

She planted her hands on her hips. “No buts, Fred.” Wedding favors first, joke shop second—and _outside_ , if you don’t mind.” George opened his mouth. “That wasn’t a request.”

“It’s for Harry,” Fred muttered, though he had already put the so-called done bombs away.

Molly paused, fighting the urge to relent.

George barely glanced at her, but she saw the calculating light in his eyes. “He’s always getting into trouble, so we figured—”

“Might as well try and help.”

“Not like he’s going to use them, bloody git.”

Fred wrinkled his nose in agreement. “Harry wouldn’t run from a fight for a million galleons.”

With a sigh, Molly softened her stance. “Well,” she said, trying not to sound like they had won her over. “That’s very thoughtful of you both. But it can wait until the favors are taken care of,” she added as George looked ready to say something he considered clever.

He deflated, traded looks with Fred, and set to work collecting the charmed birds they’d startled into flight. The birds were supposed to sing the song Fleur had chosen to walk down the aisle to, but at the moment they sounded more like a flock of winged mandrakes. Several had retreated to the upper corners of the room and—true to George’s prediction—two darted past Molly and out into the hallway.

“Where’s Harry when you need him?” George muttered, tottering precariously on his desk chair in an attempt to reach a bird that had hidden inside the light fixture. “Oy! Gin! How’d you like to catch a couple snitches for me and George!”

“You’re _Fred_!” Ginny shouted back from down the hall. “And you can catch your own wedding favors, thank you.” She sniffed, George scowled, and Fred laughed so hard he dropped the bird he’d just caught. It careened once around the room, then burrowed into a pile of laundry—clean and folded, but not yet put away.

Molly shook her head and left them to it. Ron’s room was at the end of the hall, away from the stairs and the waiting laundry, but Molly let the housework sit a moment more. Ron and Ginny were less likely than the twins to cause trouble, especially with Hermione in the room with them—or they _had been_ less likely, before they started talking about secret business Dumbledore had left them.

Molly stopped just outside the door, listening, but it wasn’t the secret they were talking about.

“I still don’t see why _I_ shouldn’t be allowed to go,” Ginny said, sounding quite cross. “Harry’s my friend, too!”

“The Trace, Gin.” Ron managed to make himself seem a decade older and wiser than his sister, not a bare year. “Bad enough Harry’s still underage. If you go, we won’t even be able to cast spells _before_ we’ve got to Privet Drive.”

Fear closed around Molly’s heart. She’d stayed quiet when Arthur told her of the plan. Polyjuice, decoys, a dozen safehouses all across the country so the Dark Lord wouldn’t know where Harry had been taken. And nearly Molly’s whole family caught up in the chase.

If it had been for any other reason but ferreting Harry away to the relative safety of the Burrow, Molly and Arthur would have had a row.

But it was Harry, and Molly would have gone herself if she’d thought she would be more help than hindrance.

As it was, Molly had spent the last four days worrying almost incessantly, and trying to find a justifiable target for her worry. Ron and Hermione were the youngest of those who would go to retrieve Harry, but they’d both stood with him through more battles than most grown wizards ever saw; now was hardly the time to begin sheltering them.

Fred and George were young, as well, but they were as smart as Hermione in their way, if not as dependable. Smart and inventive, and serious when the situation called for it. Molly might have worried more for them if she wasn’t certain they would bring along any number of their own creations to fight off whatever Death Eaters they encountered.

Then there were Bill and Fleur and Arthur, but these three were old enough by far that Molly had no right telling them to stay home while the younger boys and Hermione risked their lives, even if she thought none of them belonged in a duel with Death Eathers.

In the end, she decided to worry for all of them, and for Harry most of all, because really, he didn’t worry for himself has as much as he ought to.

Well, he would be here soon, and that was what mattered.

Molly lifted a hand and knocked on the door.

“Hello, Mrs. Weasley,” said Hermione brightly, scarcely looking up from her work folding table cards, each with a different guest’s name stenciled in fine silver letters. Beside her, Ginny flushed and hunched over her work.

Ron lay on the bed they’d made up for Harry, a considerably smaller array of finished cards ranged around him. Where Ginny and Hermione had stacked their cards neatly, grouped by table so they would be easy to lay out on the day of the wedding, setting aside smudged cards to be redone, Ron seemed to be tossing his cards carelessly about as he folded them, his attention more on the radio playing softly in the corner than on the work.

Molly glanced briefly at Ginny, who seemed suitably abashed that her mother had overheard her whingeing about being left behind, and decided not to comment. (Besides, it wasn’t as though Ginny could sneak along with Mad-Eye and the others when the time came.)

“Everything coming along?” Molly asked instead, brightly, glancing at the table cards.

It was Ron’s turn to flush, and he sat up on his knees, quickening his pace. Hermione set aside the last card in her stack and quietly reached up to take three-quarters of what Ron had remaining. He scowled at her, and she smiled pleasantly back.

“Yes, Mrs. Weasley,” Hermione said. “We’ll be done soon.”

“Good to hear, good to hear.” There was a clatter from the twins’ room, and Molly glanced worriedly at the corridor. “I suppose you’re getting on better than Fred and George.”

Ginny snickered.

Molly heaved a sigh, making a conscious decision not to concern herself with their antics. There was enough to worry about without Fred and George causing chaos in their own room. The ghoul in the attic banged on the pipes, as if it felt left out with all the fun happening below.

“All right,” she said, raising her hands. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Dinner in an hour?”

“Sounds good, Mum,” Ron said, and didn’t wait even for Molly to fully turn around before he flopped backwards on the bed, abandoning his table cards.

Molly smiled to herself, gave the twins’ door a wary look as she passed, then went to finish folding the laundry. When it was done, however, she did not immediately start on dinner. The reminder of what was to happen tonight had ignited a restless energy within her, and she found herself heading out the back door and across the lawn to the shed where Arthur was working on the motorbike.

She heard the clang of muggle tools on metal and the softer sizzle of spells when she was still well away, and a different sort of anxiety joined the thoughts of tonight. It was no small wonder Fred and George had grown up to be so careless of backfiring spells, when their father spend every day mixing magic and muggle technology.

Arthur yelped, not sharp enough to signify anything truly worrisome, but Molly picked up the pace all the same.

“Arthur?” she called, pausing just outside the door. He was silent for only an instant before he nudged the door open with his toe and smiled over his shoulder at her.

“Hello, Molly, dear. It’s not suppertime already, is it?”

Molly tried not to laugh at the sight of him, his thinning hair sticking up in all directions, his face streaked with motor oil, a funny-looking muggle tool dragging his trousers down by a clip at his waist. The trouble with Thicknesse had made a kink in Mad-Eye’s plans, and they had all had to scramble to come up with something new before Harry’s birthday came, and with it the end of the protections on Number Four, Privet Drive.

“You’re _still_ working on this?” Molly asked, staring in scarcely concealed horror at the big, clunky motorbike, which smelled of oil and gasoline. “Mad-Eye will be here in less than three hours, Arthur!”

“I know,” Arthur said, hastily bending over the little dashboard above the handlebars. There were buttons there Molly was mostly sure hadn’t been there the last time she had seen the vehicle. “I’m almost done. Almost done.”

She frowned, watching him work. Unlike the rest of the family, he had been unofficially excused from wedding preparation for the past several days so he could work on the motorbike. It was, after all, where Mad-Eye was planning to place Harry, and Arthur had been quite insistent that it have every possible defence. Fred and George had helped with ideas, but in the end it was down to Arthur to make the modifications. No one else knew muggle technology as well, or how to toe the line and make magic work without ruining the muggle mechanisms.

Seconds passed. Arthur screwed a panel back into place, then knelt beside the exhaust pipe and prodded it with his wand, watching the colored sparks the wand emitted. He frowned and bent over to peer along the length of the pipe.

Molly lingered in the doorway, her hand clutching at her collar. “Do you think it will be enough?” she asked softly. “They should have pushed this back. You need more time.”

“Another day wouldn’t change anything, except maybe encourage You-Know-Who to post a few more Death Eaters in Little Whinging.”

Arthur spoke distractedly and only seemed to register his own words when Molly breathed in a strangled gasp. Then he sat back, looking up at her with a crease between his brows and dark shadows under his eyes. She wondered how much sleep he had gotten last night. She had already been asleep by the time he turned in, but he had still risen with her at dawn, trudging back out here to continue the modifications he hoped would keep Harry safe. Safe enough, anyway; there was no _safe_ when Harry Potter was involved.

“Sorry,” Arthur said, scrubbing at his face. His hands being as dirty as they were, the gesture only succeeded in smearing more oil across his skin so he looked like one of the twins’ pranks had squirted squid ink in his face. “It will be enough. Hagrid won’t let anything happen to him.”

Molly nodded, and Arthur seemed to notice her lingering doubts, for he stood and crossed toward her. He remembered his hands just in time and grabbed a rag to wipe the oil away before he took Molly’s hands and squeezed.

She looked up at him, her heart quivering fearfully in her chest. “Is it wrong that I wish Mad-Eye would let you take him? Or—let him go with Lupin. You know he would as soon die as let You-Know-Who touch Harry.”

“Any of us would,” Arthur assured him. “Hagrid is the right choice, Molly, you know he is. The strongest protectors will draw the most attention, and anyone on a broom. And--”

“I know, I know.” Molly waved away the rest of the argument. “I’ve heard Moody’s reasoning, same as you. And I know he’s right, I just… I want him here.” She shook her head. She respected Albus Dumbledore far too much to speak ill of him aloud, especially so soon after his death, but she did wish he hadn’t been so insistent on keeping Harry with the Dursleys. If only he’d come straight to the Burrow with Ron and Ginny at the end of term, then none of them would have to worry about Death Eaters or the Dark Lord or whether Pius Thicknesse really had gone over to that side.

As if he could read her mind, Arthur sighed and leaned back against his work table, still holding onto Molly’s hands. “I keep wishing we’d moved him sooner. But we were expecting it to be much easier than it turned out to be. If Thicknesse hadn’t made it so we couldn’t portkey out… No. There’s no point in dwelling on if-onlys. We’re getting Harry tonight. Hagrid will keep him safe. We all will. And then he’ll be home, and we’ll have a few weeks before we have to worry about… anything else.”

The words he left unspoken hung between them, draining the warmth from the midsummer evening as surely as a dementor would have.

“Where do you suppose they’re going?” Molly asked after a while. “What could Dumbledore have asked them to do that the rest of the Order couldn’t do better?”

“I don’t know,” Arthur said. “I don’t know of anything that has to be Harry, short of facing the Dark Lord himself--”

“Don’t you joke about that,” Molly snapped. “Don’t you even joke.”

Her hands were shaking, and Arthur squeezed them, his face pinching with worry. “I’m not. I hope it’s not that, anything but that, but we all know what the prophecies say.”

“Bugger the prophecies!” Molly pulled her hands free and clutched again at her collar. “He’s just a boy, Arthur!” Not for much longer, she knew, not by wizarding law, but that didn’t change the image she had in her head of a thin, bashful eleven-year-old tumbling off the Hogwarts Express with Ron at the end of his first year. He was no less a child because the war had stolen his innocence too soon. “Why does it have to be him?”

Arthur had no answer for her. No one did, not even Dumbledore. The prophecy said it had to be Harry, and with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named gaining more power and more followers every day, they could not wait until Harry was older.

Sometimes Molly wished it didn’t have to be this way. The whole wizarding world had pinned their hopes on a child, a brave and wonderful boy who would stand against the greatest evil in living memory for no other reason because it was _right_. Sometimes Molly wanted to take them all by the ears, every witch and wizard in Europe, and shake them until they saw the boy behind the stories.

Looking at Arthur, who stared despondently down at Hagrid’s motorbike, Molly knew her husband felt the same. They had taken Harry into their hearts from the start, and however much it hurt, they had to let him do this.

They would just have to offer him as much support as they could, and pray he would accept it.

* * *

A few hours later, it was time. Hagrid wheeled his motorbike out of the shed, Mad-Eye Moody gathered the decoys and protectors. Lupin paused to assure Molly all would be well, Tonks whispered something in Ginny’s ear that made her grin, tension momentarily forgotten. Mundungus Fletcher looked like he wanted to yield his place to Ginny, and Molly would have boxed his ears had Kingsley Shacklebolt not loomed over the diminutive man, a glowering colossus that kept even Mundungus’s fear in check.

Then, after one last chorus of farewells and well-wishes, they were gone, portkeying away to the stables where they’d left the thestrals.

Molly and Ginny were now alone at the Burrow, the darkness closing in around them in stifling waves. It was just over an hour until the first portkey would return. Just over an hour to distract themselves from thoughts of Death Eathers and Unforgivables flying thick around a full two thirds of their family.

Molly took up her knitting, checking the yarn to make sure her protective charms were still in place. It was an impossibly small gesture, a jumper that would offer warmth, a thin shield, and partial disillusionment. Next to everything Harry had already faced, everything still awaiting him, it seemed a trifle, but Molly Weasley was neither Auror nor potioneer nor inventor of useful oddities, as her husband and the twins were. She would offer Harry what help she could and hope, if nothing else, the jumper might remind him of home.

Ginny sat on the sofa facing Molly, curled up with her chin on her knees. Her fingers fiddled with the ends of her sleeves, and her gaze was unfocused as she watched the motion of Molly’s needles.

“They’ll be all right, won’t they?” she asked in a small voice.

Molly’s hands slowed. Lowering her knitting, she looked at Ginny, reminded suddenly that she was not a child now, any more than Harry was the eleven-year-old of Molly’s memories. Ginny had had her first brush with the Dark Lord as a first year, and she’d only grown stronger and bolder since. Something inside Molly ached to reach out and pull her back down, to drag her back to a childhood where she might be safe.

But it was too late for that, now, and Molly smiled as reassuringly as she could. “Of course they will,” she said, not a sliver of doubt making it past her wards. “No need to worry. Have you finished all your summer work? There’s still centerpieces to be made if your hands haven’t got anything better to do.”

“I thought we did those last week?” Ginny shook her head, uncurling one limb at a time. “Anyway, I’ve got something else I should be working on.” She disappeared up the stairs and returned with a Defence Against the Dark Arts textbook—battered and dogeared from long use.

Molly frowned. “Did your new professor send out readings? I thought they hadn’t hired anyone yet.”

“They haven’t,” Ginny said. She flicked at the corner of a page, biting her lip. “This is for Dumbledore’s Army. I thought—since Harry’s not going to be there, I might as well step up. The rest of us still need to know how to defend ourselves, even if Harry is off on some very-not-dangerous quest for Dumbledore.”

The way she said that, in almost perfect imitation of Ron’s voice, brought a smile to Molly’s face. It seemed Molly was not the only one determined to pry answers from those three. Arthur and Lupin might have given up, but there were others in Harry’s life who would not be so deterred.

Ginny looked up, jaw clenched, defiance lending a sudden fire to her gaze. “No one else realizes they’re not coming back, not yet. If I don’t do this, no one will. Not right away, anyway, and if we lose momentum it’ll be harder than ever to reform.”

She thought Molly was going to stop her. Molly almost laughed at the thought, but managed to temper it to a small, sad smile. What was the world coming to, that a sixth year was taking on half the school’s education in what was now the most vital subject? Not that Molly trusted for one second whatever foul toad Snape decided to appoint to the post.

“You’re right, I suppose,” Molly said, heaving a sigh just heavy enough to assure Ginny that Molly was relenting only grudgingly. (Ginny always had done best when she thought she was acting out.) “Do try to stick to the safe spells, though?”

“Of course, Mum.”

They settled in to wait, Molly with her knitting, Ginny with her research. Ten minutes into the wait, Molly waved her wand and turned on the radio to fill the silence. She had to scan through three stations to avoid news that would only wind them tighter, but then she found a station playing old, familiar music. Ginny wrinkled her nose slightly as one of Celestina Warbeck’s songs came on.

Molly ignored this, though she made a small concession in turning the volume down to little more than a whisper. They continued on like this for the better part of an hour, both of them darting anxious looks to the clock on the mantle—for all the good it did them. Every family member’s hand pointed to _mortal peril_ , just as they always did, now.

It was the radio that told them when the scheduled time for the first portkey was near. The music faded and the station switched over to a weather report—“Every hour, on the hour!”

Molly set her knitting aside, Ginny snapped her textbook shut, and they sat there staring at each other. The weather report finished, the radio returned to playing tunes from Molly’s Hogwarts days, and Ginny huffed and got up to switch it off.

She continued on to the kitchen, and Molly heard her pacing, opening and shutting cabinets in that restless, unfocused way of someone trying to forget their own thoughts.

Molly lingered in her chair a while longer, then joined Ginny in the kitchen and put on a tea kettle.

“They’ll want something to warm them when they get back,” Molly said by way of explanation, though Ginny hadn’t asked and the kettle didn’t hold near enough water for fourteen cups of tea.

Ginny glanced down at her watch. “Two minutes till Ron and Tonks,” she said.

Molly was to the door faster than her daughter, staring out into the night and holding her breath as she waited for the telltale glow of a portkey.

It came, and a rusty oil can appeared in midair—but Ron and Tonks were not attached. Molly’s heart plummeted as Ginny’s fingers closed around her elbow.

“They were slow getting out of Privet Drive,” she whispered, and Molly knew the words were meant to reassure Ginny herself. “They just missed the portkey, they’ll be along soon. Auntie Muriel’s isn’t so far away.”

Numbly, Molly raised a hand to cover Ginny’s. She could offer no reassurances, not when she herself feared the worst. _Mortal peril._ Just because it was constant now didn’t make it any less true. Any number of things might have happened on the flight from Privet Drive, and every last one of them tumbled through Molly’s mind as she stood at the back door with Ginny.

An old shoe appeared in a halo of blue light and dropped, unused, near the oil can.

 _Arthur and Fred_ , Molly thought, terror clawing at her throat. She had forgotten how to move, and her tongue was too thick for words, though Ginny made up for that my keeping up a stream of increasingly desperate reassurances.

“--Dursleys might not have left on time—you know how they are, horrid family—or there might have been a storm. It’s nasty, flying in foul weather—did you listen to that last weather report? I didn’t. There might have been a storm in Surrey, _I_ couldn’t say. Or—or—oh!”

The babbling cut off abruptly as the third portkey arrived—this time with Harry and Hagrid in tow, both a little bloodied, both rumpled enough Molly thought the earth itself might have roused to assault them.

“Harry?” Molly cried, tearing down the stairs just as heedlessly as Ginny. “You _are_ the real Harry? What happened? Where are the others?”

She stopped short, for half a second convinced Mad-Eye had changed the plan at the last instant. He _would_ , paranoid old codger. If this was Mundungus Fletcher--

But Harry’s eyes had gone wide and he looked frantic despite the exhaustion plain on his face. “What d’you mean? Isn’t anyone else back?”

Molly couldn’t find the words to reply, and Harry’s face fell.

“The Death Eaters were waiting for us. We were surrounded the moment we took off—they knew it was tonight—” His voice had a breathless quality to it, a guilt and a plea Molly had grown used to seeing in him. For one who had done so very many things for others without expecting a word of thanks, he always seemed to think he was the one who needed to apologize. “I don’t know what happened to anyone else—four of them chased us, it was all we could do to get away, and then Voldemort caught up with us—”

He was near to hyperventilating now, tripping over his own words. Molly knew he must be as worried for the rest of the family as she was, so she cut him off with a quick, tight hug. “Thank goodness you’re all right.”

* * *

The next few hours were a flurry of emotions and activity—treating George’s cursed wound, absorbing the news of Mad-Eye’s death, trading fierce hugs and quiet reassurances. Slowly the other Order members departed and Bill returned from searching for Mad-Eye’s body.

Molly hugged and kissed each of her children, Harry and Hermione included, before sending them upstairs for some sorely needed sleep. Even Fleur—too shaken now for poise—returned Molly’s embrace with gusto and kissed her on each cheek before she went to sit with Bill on the sofa and speak in low tones, a few straggling tears chasing her words down her cheeks.

When the house was quiet once more, Molly climbed the stairs as silently as the well worn wood would allow. She glanced first in the twins’ room and found Fred asleep sitting up against the headboard, George’s bandaged head on his lap.

 _Safe,_ she reminded herself. _They’re safe, and that’s what matters._

Molly stopped next outside Ginny’s room, but she could hear the quiet murmur of voices inside, spilling out beneath the door with the wash of watery light. She had not expected Ginny to be able to sleep after the torturous wait and the shock of George’s wound, but she could at least be grateful Hermione was there, calm and steady, to share Ginny’s fears.

Hermione, likely, would do Ginny more good than Molly would have, so she left them to their hushed conversation and pushed open the door of Ron’s room. Moonlight cast the room in soft shadows, and the sound of Ron’s snores put her heart at ease. For him, at least, fatigue had won out over terror.

Molly’s eyes found Harry, a still, small lump under the blankets. He slept curled in on himself, the blanket pulled up all the way to his nose.

Arthur’s hand on her shoulder startled her, but he said nothing, merely joined her silent vigil over their seventh son.

“He’s here,” Molly whispered, and Arthur seemed to understand what it was she meant by those words.

She’d heard Ron and Hermione whispering, and for all they held this secret close, she knew it would not be long before they were off to face their own battles. As much as Molly wanted to protect them, she couldn’t help but think these three children—no, these young men and woman—were the ones who would end up protecting the entire wizarding world.

But she would stay here, a rock to which they could return. She could not keep Harry safe, not forever, but she could keep him grounded. He would fight, as long and as hard as they needed him to, and Molly would not, _could_ not hold him back.

All she could do was what she had always done: open her home to him, and offer him a reason to return when the battle was finished.


End file.
